BP robots prepare risky bid to stop oil leak

LOS ANGELES — BP’s robots wielded clamps and hauled machinery Monday in a slow-motion ballet a mile below the surface of the Gulf of Mexico, preparing the next risky maneuver to stanch the gush of oil from the company’s renegade well.

The initial step to sever the crumpled and ruptured
broken riser pipe that is spewing as much as 798,000 gallons of oil a
day was expected late Monday or Tuesday. But BP spokesman Graham MacEwen said the company could not predict when it would be ready to cut the
ragged pipe, a necessary operation to enable the snug fit of a cap that
would funnel oil to a ship at the surface.

BP has predicted the new effort could capture much
of the oil, but if it failed, it could boost the flow by removing any
resistance the pinched and bent pipe may have created.

Ultimately, the catastrophic leak can be halted only
when a relief well — two are now being drilled — intercepts the
existing well in August at the earliest to enable a new cementing job.

The robots Monday were “preparing the area, making
smaller cuts or trimming operations,” MacEwen said. The company’s
website, bp.com, would continue to stream live video of the maneuver,
he said.

As the struggle to reduce the flow continued, the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted that moderate
winds from the south and southwest this week could move oil slicks
closer to the Mississippi and Alabama coasts by Wednesday.

Nearly six weeks have elapsed since the April 20
blowout that killed 11 men aboard the Deepwater Horizon rig and started
the largest oil spill in U.S history. About 120 miles of Louisiana
coastline have been contaminated by slicks and tar balls, and a quarter
of federal waters in the region remain closed to fishing.

Controversy arose Monday over BP Chief Executive Tony Hayward’s
questioning over the weekend of statements from two scientific research
teams that vast underwater plumes of hydrocarbons have been detected in
a wide area of the Gulf. BP found “no evidence” of plumes in its own
tests, he said.

Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass.,
chairman of a subcommittee investigating the spill, mocked Hayward’s
assertions, saying, “BP in this instance means ‘Blind to Plumes.’ “

He released a letter sent to BP America President Lamar McKay asking for “copies of all measurements, calculations or other
supporting materials on which Mr. Hayward based his statements
regarding the existence of sub-surface plumes of oil.”

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. will tour the spill area Tuesday and meet with federal prosecutors and
state attorneys general, the Justice Department announced Monday.

The department last week told BP, the owner of the well, as well as rig operator Transocean Ltd. and cementing contractor Halliburton Co., to preserve all paperwork connected to the accident, in what appeared to be the first step toward a criminal investigation.

———

(c) 2010, Los Angeles Times.

Visit the Los Angeles Times on the Internet at http://www.latimes.com/

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.